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oris Johnson was under enormous pressure to deliver a successful vaccine today as he promised MPs a “means of escape” from the blockade.
The prime minister announced that London’s ExCeL exhibition center will host one of seven new mega-vaccination venues launched in stadiums and hallways next week.
The current NHS Nightingale in downtown Docklands will be divided, turning half into a vaccine center capable of hitting tens of thousands of people each week.
Addressing MPs who have warned that the vaccine effort must be done right the first time, Mr. Johnson said the rollout “will finally rid us of this miserable virus.” Parliamentarians were expected to vote to pass the new shutdown regulations, despite anger among right-wing conservatives that the shutdown end date was signed into law on March 31, some five to six weeks later than suggested by first time in the prime minister’s speech to the nation. Monday.
Mr. Johnson told them: “There is a fundamental difference between the regulations before the House today and the position that we have faced at any previous stage, because now we have the vaccines that are the means of escape.”
- Dr Kevin Fong, National Clinical Advisor to the NHS England Emergency Preparedness and Response Team for Covid-19, warned that the country was entering the “most dangerous four to six weeks of the entire pandemic” as many hospitals They struggle to cope with a surge in admissions, and cases continue to rise.
- Official figures showed that 87,610 cases of Covid-19 were confirmed in the week after Boxing Day in London, and the disease continued to spread in almost every part of the capital. The seven-day Covid rate has soared above 1,000 new cases per 100,000 residents in 12 counties, reaching 1,496.4 in Barking and Dagenham in the week through Dec. 31, the highest rate in the country. , and 971.3 for London as a whole.
- Nicola Sturgeon’s health minister faced questions after dozens of NHS staff members queued for up to two and a half hours in nearly freezing weather outside a Glasgow hospital in a vaccine mix-up. A staff member was quoted on GlasgowLive as saying: “The queue was a mile long … There were many surgeons in the queue.”
Describing the NHS vaccination plan, Johnson told Commons that there were nearly 1,000 vaccination centers in operation across the country, including 595 GP-run sites, with another 180 open later this week, and also in 107 hospitals.
The seven major centers will be located in the main cities and will carry out thousands of strokes a day.
Mr Zahawi told BBC Radio 4’s Today program: “We launched with hospital centers and then implemented in primary care networks, five or six general practitioner surgeries come together, one will lead the support of the others and they are very effective in vaccinating their communities and of course also in the nursing home sector.
“Then we went, in a few days, to the national vaccination centers, these are large sports halls, stadiums, and so on.
“And then we complement it with community pharmacy networks.”
More than 1.3 million have already been hit by Covid, including a quarter of those over 80.
Yet to achieve more than 13 million vaccinations by mid-February, for those over 70, front-line health and social care workers, as well as other people vulnerable to Covid. it would require a large increase in vaccine delivery.
Mr. Zahawi admitted that the goal was being “stretched” but expressed “confidence” that it would be achieved.
Military logistics chiefs are involved in the NHS launch of the vaccine.
The minister told Sky News: “It is a great goal, and I think the Prime Minister is right in setting challenging goals.
“We need to go ahead with this and do it as quickly but as safely as possible, so I congratulate the NHS on the plan they put in place.
“The military are integrated into the team.
“So it is a union of the nation to achieve this.
“It is a goal that certainly extends, a goal that extends a lot.
“But I am sure that with this plan that the NHS has developed we will succeed.”
Starting Monday, daily figures on the number of people vaccinated will be published.
After the start of the third national shutdown, Dr Kevin Fong, National Clinical Advisor to the NHS England Emergency Preparedness and Response Team for Covid-19, warned that the country was entering the “most dangerous four to six weeks of all. the pandemic “as many hospitals are struggling to cope with an increase in admissions and cases continue to rise.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today program that alert level five “by definition means that there is a risk that NHS services will be overwhelmed in the next 21 days.”
He added: “I think what awaits us now is the most dangerous four or six weeks of the entire pandemic and we need this latest push to move forward, and we need everyone’s help … to help suffocate the supply of these cases that arrive.
“We need the public to help us, we are there to help. We need you to help us. “
He said “the whole country is busy right now, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, we are getting very hot.”
On comments on social media that downplay the severity of the pandemic, he said: “I have been a doctor for 22 years, I have been trained in anesthesia and intensive care.
“I spent my Christmas moving patients from one hospital to another trying to find spare beds that we can park them in, and I have been integrated with the Covid-19 response since March.
“So you can believe me that hospitals are full, or you can believe people sitting in front of a keyboard who have never put on a shred of PPE and never seen the inside of an intensive care unit, let alone for the Covid-19. “
Meanwhile, the government has been accused of ignoring an “army” of small pharmacies in the delivery of the coronavirus vaccine.
The president of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, Sandra Gidley, said there were thousands of pharmacies that were “ready, willing and able” to help implement the program.
Ms Gidley said that according to government plans, some larger pharmacies were involved, but they had to be able to guarantee that they could deliver at least 950 doses per day.
While that was necessary for the Pfizer vaccine, which is more complicated to handle, he said the arrival of the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab meant it could be given in much smaller units.
“We are already used to delivering the flu vaccine. You have an army of trained vaccinators who are ready, willing and able to play and participate, ”he told BBC Radio 4 Today.
“With the AstraZeneca vaccine there is no reason why it cannot be delivered through community pharmacies.
“There are more than 11,000 pharmacies. If each of them takes 20 a day, that is, an additional 1.3 million vaccinations a week, they can be given, very often, to the most difficult to reach.
“Why wouldn’t a government want to do that?”
Mr. Zahawi insisted that both independent and larger community pharmacists participate in the vaccination program.
He added that, in addition to getting more vaccine sites, it was also important to increase vaccine delivery by the 1,000 that will be operational by the end of the week.
Britain is among the pioneers in efforts to vaccinate citizens, and Boris Johnson noted that more people in the UK had received the jab than the rest of Europe.
Health sources emphasized that the UK is only behind Israel and Bahrain in terms of vaccinations per capita.
